Fresh Paint
in Spartanburg, South Carolina. This
marks the first use of a waterborne
compact process in a U.S. automotive
manufacturing plant.
“Our waterborne B1:B2 technology
highlights our dedication to helping
our customers reduce the overall paint
shop footprint and environmental
impact, while achieving superior
appearance and maintaining color
flexibility.”
KNUTSEN’S NEW LNG CARRIER COATED WITH INTERSLEEK AT DAEWOO
The application of International Paint’s (IP) premium foul release coating, Intersleek 900, to the hull of the 173,400 cubic meter ‘Sevilla
Knutsen,’ a new liquid natural gas (LNG) carrier built at Daewoo
Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) in South Korea for
Norwegian owner Knutsen OAS Shipping, is an important milestone for
several reasons.
One, it is International Paint Korea’s hundredth application of
Intersleek, IP’s leading range of silicone and fluoropolymer based foul
release coatings which typically cut fuel consumption and reduce emis-
sions by between 6% and 9%. Two, it is yet another application of
Intersleek to the hull of a new LNG carrier, this time for Norway’s
Knutsen. Previously, Intersleek has been used on a significant number
of LNG carriers, including the Q-flex and Q-max vessels built in South
Korea for Qatar’s Nakilat. This application means that over 1 million
square meters of Intersleek has now been applied at newbuilding in
Korea. And three, it demonstrates how one of the world’s largest ship-
builders has easily adopted the relatively new coatings technology at
the ship construction stage.
Introduced in February 2007,
Intersleek 900 is a patented
biocide-free fluoropolymer foul
release coating and represents
the very latest advances in foul
release technology. It comple-
ments the widely acclaimed
Intersleek 700 silicone-based
foul release coating which has
been available since 1999.
There have now been more than
1,000 applications of the
Intersleek range on a diverse
range of ships’ hulls including
container ships, tankers, bulk
carriers, ro-ro vessels and fer-
ries, gas carriers, chemical tankers and naval vessels.
IPK has achieved considerable success in the application of Foul
Release Coatings in the Korean Newbuilding market since their first
application at Daewoo in 2005. Since then, Intersleek has also been
applied at Hyundai Heavy Industries and Samsung Heavy Industries.
In the traditional automotive paint
process, the application of pretreat-ment and electrocoat is followed by a
primer layer. After the primer layer is
cured, a topcoat layer of basecoat and
clearcoat is applied and cured. This
process has become a focus of technical brainstorming, due to it being both
costly and time consuming.
The next generation B1:B2 technology works within BMW’s Integrated
Paint Process and allows the customer
to reduce the number of steps necessary to paint a vehicle by moving the
traditional primer application into the
topcoat booth. This movement eliminates the dedicated primer booth and
all related processing.
The B1 layer provides primer, filling, chip and durability benefits. The
B2 layer provides color and additional durability. Both the B1 and B2 layers are applied wet-on-wet and do not
require a baking or a heated dehydration process in between. The fewer
processing steps results in reducing
the overall energy usage and paint
shop footprint. Compact paint processes like the B1:B2 process from
PPG generate savings in capital and
operating costs for OEMs by reducing
the manufacturing footprint of a
paint shop, lowering energy consumption and increasing overall process
efficiency.
International Paint’s premium foul release
coating, Intersleek 900 was applied to
the hull of the Sevilla Knutsen.
AKZONOBEL TO DIVEST
NATIONAL STARCH BUSINESS
AkzoNobel has sold its National
Starch business to Corn Products
International for $1.3 billion. The
transaction, which has been approved by the boards of both
AkzoNobel and Corn Products International, is expected to close at the
end of the third quarter of 2010. Corn
Products International is a global
provider of ingredient solutions for
diversified industries based in
Westchester, Illinois, in the U.S.
National Starch—a subsidiary of the
